I found this lovely 1950’s Kenrole paisley print dress at David Owens Vintage at 161 Rivington Street, in Manhattan. I bought it when they were at 154 Orchard Street but I just saw an article online that they moved. I really liked that I could wear it year round, and that it had stripes in the design as well as paisley. Plus it is conservative enough that I should be able to wear it to an office when I find more work again. It was already on sale, yet there was another twenty percent taken off due to a national holiday. So I ended up with a really good deal and I just had to rearrange the positions of some of the vintage buttons, due to some of the rhinestones having fallen out.
The vintage bracelet with various colors of glass and crystals I bought at a garage sale years ago. The small champagne-colored glass and crystal earrings are from 1981 when I started making beaded hanging earrings and selling them. The little black belt I found after scrounging around at Green Village in Queens.
My friend Bill Bernthal took these photos of me for the blog before I had foot surgery. I haven’t been able to get out much the last month, as I am still recovering from foot surgery. Bill has taken a lot of candid shots in the past, those are what he typically chooses to photograph. Anyway, he wanted to take some shots of me for the blog. We went to Prospect Park and took a nice walk. There are some lovely wooded areas in the park, plus some seating areas near the water that offer lovely views of the lake and the birds at the lake. Those areas are very shaded though, so not the best for blog post photos. Bill took these out in the more open areas of the park. A few of the shots were taken in my community garden a couple of blocks away from where I live. There are a lot of auto body shops in my area, so they are in the background.
Several readers expressed that they wanted me to do another post on paisleys. I am working on one that has more facts and tidbits about the paisley pattern. I will post that one after I can get out and walk about again and get over to the David Owens Vintage shop to take some pictures of his vintage paisley collection. As of next week I should be able to walk outside again and go buy a pair of oxfords to wear for a while until I can wear my other shoes again.
I am so looking forward to getting out and enjoying fall. The past month of healing and staying home hasn’t been easy. My foot has been in pain for years though so the surgery was much needed and a great relief to get it behind me!!
I hope you are enjoying the changing of the seasons. Fall is one of my favorite times of year, as I really enjoy seeing all the beautiful colors as the leaves change, and then seeing those colorful leaves cascade down the streets. There is something sort of magical and calming about it all, as the nip comes back into the air and then winter prepares to blow in. I am not really the biggest fan of summer so that is where that sentiment comes from!
Outfit details
1950’s Kenrole dress from David Owen’s Vintage, New York, New York
Vintage black belt from Green Village, Brooklyn, NY
Vintage wrap bracelet from garage sale
Vintage earrings from 1981. I made them years ago.
I ran across some of Bernard de la Bourdonnaie Blossac’s illustrations awhile back when I was writing the post about Antonio Lopez, the illustrator. I was struck by the simple elegance of his work. He was born in Paris, France in 1917. His parents owned a large piece of property in Solonge, north-central France and this place is where they enjoyed the sport of hunting. Bernard Blossac, a more creative soul, did not like hunting and he spent his time drawing and painting still life settings and landscapes instead.
He studied at various art academies and in the atelier of Paul Colin, prior to being discovered by designer Robert Piguet. Piguet introduced him to Paul Caldaques, President of the Chambre Synicale de la Couture. (1) Soon after meeting Caldaques he began publishing his drawings in Vogue, L’Officiel, L’Art et la Mode, Harper’s Bazaar and International Textiles. (2) Aside from Piguet, Blossac worked for such designers as Christian Dior, Jacques Fath, Jean Desses, Balenciaga, Worth, Carven and Givenchy. (3)
After the war ended in Europe, Blossac drew for several foreign journals. He traveled to the US and to London, England for business. For thirty years he devoted himself to his craft professionally. After that he continued to draw, only more for pleasure than for a living. At the time of his death in 2002, his nephew, whom he had adopted, took care of his remaining collection of art.
I could not find much information about Jean DeMarchy, the illustrator of the final drawing in this post. This does not stop me from sharing the stunning drawing by him for designer Lanvin in 1952. Much of DeMarchy’s work was published in “Harper’s Bazaar” during the 1950’s.
Both artists featured in this post used pencil, pen, soft pastels, and charcoal for their mediums. Both incorporated lovely simple lines and achieved the look of aristocratic elegance and class in their drawings. While the clothing itself was beautiful, the artists captured the essence of the experience of wearing the outfits.
My grandmother, Annette Lavender, used to have a beautiful collection of vintage fashion illustrations upon her bedroom wall. As a child I often admired them. What a lovely way to get a glimpse into the fashionable era of another time.
If you yourself would like to collect some fashion illustrations of the past, this website (http://hprints.com/search/Bernard-Blossac/) has several prints by Bernard Blossac, as well as other fashion illustrators. I did not see a copy of this illustration by Jean DeMarchy however.
I hope you enjoyed this post. I had foot surgery on my right foot last Friday morning, so I have been recuperating and it is a slow process. I find it quite difficult to wrap my head around writing posts at this moment. I have several in the works but perhaps by next week I will be more able to focus on them. I have been on pain killers and feeling quite drugged. Right now my life is revolving around my right foot healing and that involves a small repetition of daily acts such as icing my foot regularly, cat napping and hobbling around in between. Luckily I have been getting help and am being well taken care of.
I do hope you enjoy whatever is left of summer, and the coming joy of fall. Fall is one of my favorite seasons and I am seriously looking forward to fall and fall posts!
There is the constant vein of fashion in this blog. I love recycling and my main goal here is still to inspire others to upcycle, wear vintage or thrifted items whenever possible. I have always enjoyed fashion; I find it inspiring. As a child, after my parents took me to the opera numerous times, I drew little drawings of women in those hoops skirts that wear so popular from the 1590’s through the mid-19th century. I especially liked the older ones, from the 1700’s, with the low plunging neck lines and super full skirts. I drew hundreds of them, designing them as I went along. I felt as if maybe I’d been born into the wrong era, things old and antique inspired me. I never thought about the fact that I was designing, I just did it. When I went to the Fashion Institute of Technology to show my portfolio I waited for four hours for the head of illustration. The head of design saw me out in the hallway all that time. He eventually asked me into his office and urged me to study design. It is a long story but I always regretted that I just didn’t wait longer for the head of illustration. Design is great, but I remained so devoted to art and illustration. I just never was able to go back to school for art after I became a single parent. Parenthood became my whole life for so long. My daughter has always been the best thing that ever happened to me, so for her life I am forever grateful. For the brief time that I did study fashion design, I remember how we always had to create a design and find twenty five ways to do it. The best way to get to the point that one can see something twenty five different ways is to be inspired. That leads us to art.
I have been doing more posts about art. I think art is very important for the reason that it feeds us, throughout our joys and struggles in life we need to return to what inspires us, what makes us feel alive. It makes me happy to share the art of others who have inspired me, touched my life in some way through their work. When I feel lost or weary, or worn down by life I can always return to their work, it inspires me and helps me to grow as a person on my own journey. I would also like to do some post about people who are doing art with recycled items. I am still working on that part.
I have never liked boredom. I enjoy keeping busy. If I am totally frazzled I will veg out and watch a movie. If I am relaxed, and want to relax further reading is a great vehicle to more relaxation. Years ago I realized that every time I sat down to read for twenty minutes I felt a difference in my nervous system. Everything seemed to calm down. Meditation helps also, to clear my mind, relax my body, and center my life from the chaos of things I can’t control. When I was a child I saw that my grandparents were raised with that notion that “idle hands are the work of the devil.” My parents tried to shield me from those extremes of thought- but the desire to create with my hands, do crafts and embrace creativity come partially from that old vein of thought. So I appreciate it from a certain standpoint and let go of the rest. Both my grandmothers loved sewing, both my grandfathers loved woodwork, one did carvings; and one went on to become a master carpenter and engineer in the Navy. One of my grandmothers attended a craft high school in the mountains of Georgia. Their love for creativity was passed down through the years and I am forever grateful.
I have been learning things about upcycling clothing. Seeing that I can have an idea, and then when I cut the fabric I can suddenly decide to change my mind, go a different route. It mirrors my life at times. Those times when we are at pivotal points in life and not sure what is going on, which way to go. The upcycling inspires me even further when I see how flexible I can suddenly become with it. The same is true with life, how things can seem so stagnant for a while, then suddenly a new flood gate opens, a new opportunity arises, things change. Just like some wind that has blown in from a different direction and everything suddenly shifts, quivers, and lands differently.
I thought I’d do a separate post called “The Morning Muse” but somehow I think they can go together , this blog birthday, and my what I refer to as my “Morning Muse.” I have been talking about this the last few months with a few people, here or there, and several people told me they appreciated me telling them how I became inspired to honor these moments the last year and a half. It just sort of slowly evolved into a habit. I felt as if I was getting up in the morning, only focusing on my stretches and leg exercises (I have arthritis and foot pain so this is a daily challenge I have to work with) then getting ready to go to work. So often I found that I was too tired or frazzled after a long work day, commuting to do anything creative at the end of the day. This had been happening so many times through the last few years I felt sad about it. I needed a change- so I started my “Morning Muse” routine. What that means is that even if it is only five to fifteen minutes I start something creative. Or if I have something in the process that isn’t completed I will devote five to fifteen minutes to it. I have noticed that this daily effort to focus on that muse has assisted me, in that I know, I have something unfinished waiting for me. I want to go back to it; I want to finish it. The mere act of starting it propels me further little by little. I definitely feel that going to Portland, Oregon in the fall of 2013 caught my creativity on fire. I still haven’t been able to do everything I was inspired to do; the city just threw fuel on my fire and changed my life. It was an amazing experience, to go to a place that I felt looks the most like my personality of any place I have ever been. I also think this “Morning Muse” routine could be helpful to people who aren’t necessarily creative as well. It is about doing something that focuses on who you are, what makes you tick. It doesn’t have to be something creative. It could just be doing something you find special that lightens your heart and makes your day better.
Music helps me to center myself and get into the place I want to be for the creativity to flow. For years I embraced silence- hour upon hour of silence. I still enjoy silence, I have found it to be incredibly healing, but I am so happy that I let the music flow back into my life more often. It not only helps me to get to that place where there is more inspiration, it helps to keep it flowing, growing and feeding the creative fire. There are a bunch of musicians I like who have helped my creative process. The past several months I like listening to a lot of Jack Hardy, who was a folk singer in the folk scene I used to hang out on in the West Village. I always liked his songs, but now they help my creativity return to that time when I felt that I was at my most creative, when I was young and it was as if my mind was on fire. I am older now, much more calm and centered. I enjoy that there is a bridge to carry me to that old inspiration and time though. I find it ignites my soul, keep me in touch with the soft spots, where there is plenty of room for more growth, more freedom of expression.
I am sharing this song of Jack Hardy’s “The Tailor” since I always loved how he expresses an opinion about clothing, fashion, disguising one’s self, the emptiness in something like competitiveness; the real nakedness that is always underneath and so evident despite everything people do to cover up their insecurities. At the end of the post I have also written out the lyrics to his song since I always have loved his lyrics, they are like poetry. Jack passed away on March 11, 2011. A bunch of his songs are available to hear on YouTube.
I also want to express how having this blog has been helping me not be quite so shy; I am one of those people who are initially shy. The only time this wasn’t a challenge was when I was in retail or wholesale sales, since the whole approach was different under those circumstances. Once I get comfortable I am fine, but there has always been this element of shyness underneath. The mere act of creating posts, taking pictures of myself for posts, and then finding readers has been helping me get over hurdles emotionally. I still am shy, but it is not the same now. The whole confidence factor is more solid. It really helps to express myself this way and to find that others are enjoying my process as well. In one of my earliest post I wrote about not being allowed to express my thoughts much as a child. My biological father was rather controlling. I also wrote in that post about how I found clothing to be my first easy way to express rebellion. It is important for me to have a voice, as it is for all of us. I have attached a picture I found in magazine years ago. I have been wild about that phrase “I send a voice, let me be free” ever since I saw this picture.
And so my blog is having its first birthday. It has been rewarding, challenging and a lot of work. I finally feel like I am finding ways to create more frequent posts, and for them to not all be so time consuming. I came up with a different plan of cycles of posts. Some of them involve lots of research and hours of figuring out how to write what I want to write. Others are not so complicated. I plan to alternate these in such a way that only once or twice a month am I doing hours of research, so that the other times I can focus on creating the photos, loading them and all the technical things one deals with while having a blog. I also have a facebook page, you are welcome to like it if you wish. The URL is :https://www.facebook.com/rewindreduceandrecycle. There are times I share different things on there since it is not the blog.
I really admire people who manage to have a zero waste lifestyle. Lauren Singer, from Trash is For Tossers is an example. (http://www.trashisfortossers.com/) I would like to work towards that goal myself eventually, but for right now I realize “Easy does it.” I am a person who really enjoys recycling things, finding ways to cut down on packaged items and I am doing a lot already. As time goes by I am able to do more and more, so I also aim to share these with you. All of us have choices and our choices do have an effect on our planet, the more conscious we become of them the more we can do.
I appreciate those of you who have been logging on regularly and reading the posts. Also, thanks to several of you who have shared the various blog posts with others. My mother and daughter have been very supportive, and that has been wonderful. I hope you enjoyed this post and are having a great time outdoors this summer!
Lyrics to The Tailor
By Jack Hardy:
“The king’s guards man’s greedy, he’s underpaid he knows
Tailor sew me a cloak of indigo, that will disguise me well for the highway’s game
No one will suspect evil and the king’s cross are the same
I will pay you dearly with half of what I claim
No said the tailor, the tailor said no
A cloak will not hide what your own eyes see
A cloak will not change what is hidden underneath
Just as mind does not confine the idea of what I am
I am not a tailor, I am a man
The king’s queen is hungry for the pleasures adultery knows
Tailor sew me a cloak of scarlet, that will disguise me well for courting on the sly, that will make the fever transparent to the night’s eye
I will pay you dearly with favors and with sighs
No said the tailor, the tailor said no,
A cloak will not hide what your own eyes sees, a cloak will not change what is hidden underneath,
Just as mind does not confine what I am, I am not a tailor, I am a man
The king he is frightened with shadows behind his back
Tailor sew me a cloak of sable, that will disguise me well from the daggers of my foes, that will keep me far above those that are below
I will pay you dearly if you fail on the gallows
No said the tailor, the tailor said no
A cloak will not hide what your own eyes see
A cloak will not change what is hidden underneath
Just as mind does not confide the idea of what I am, I am not a tailor, I am a man.”
Esther Williams was a competitive swimmer and actress in the 1940’s through the 1950’s. As a teenager, she enjoyed going to the local pool so much that she took a job working counting towels to earn the entry fee. The male lifeguards took to giving her lessons and taught her the butterfly, which at the time was a “male only” stroke. (1) In 1940, she was part of the Olympic team going to Tokyo when WWII broke out, which cancelled the competitions and her dreams of international fame.
At the time the sport news took a lot of pictures of female swimmers and Esther was beautiful, tall and very athletic. Billy Rose spotted her and brought her to the audition for his Aquacade. Johnny Weissmuller, and Olympic gold medal swimmer and Tarzan star chose her out of seventy five women who had auditioned. That was the beginning of Williams’ career in synchronized swimming.
The Aquacade was a choreographed musical, and cast in its spectacular show were hundreds of swimmers, with diving scenes, lots of singing and all kinds of special effects with water and props for water sports. Williams was the featured Aquabelle female star, along with the Aquadonis male lead, Johnny Weissmueller.
After that show was over, MGM made Williams an offer and she signed a contract to do films. She asked for two clauses in her contract. One was that she be given a pass to swim in The Beverly Hills Hotel pool, so that she could swim daily, and two that she “not appear on camera for nine months, to allow for acting, singing, dancing, and dictions lessons.” (2) Her film debut was with Mickey Rooney in 1942, in Andy Hardy’s Double life.
By 1944 MGM came up with new subgenre, aqua musicals. They built Williams a $250,000 swimming pool. “It had underwater windows, colored fountains and hydraulic lifts. (3) In 1944 Williams was cast as the leading actress with Red Skelton in Mr. Coed. Halfway through the filming, the name of the movie was changed to Bathing Beauty, which left Skelton as the supporting lead. The movie was the second most successful film of 1944, with Gone with the Wind in the lead. In the 1949 movie Neptune’s Daughter, Williams co-starred with Ricardo Montalban. Together they sang “Baby its Cold Outside.” The song won the Academy Award for the Best Original Song at the 22nd Academy Award.” (4)
By the mid 1940’s, the MGM musicals were well known, and popular worldwide. Between the early 1940’s and the late 1950’s Esther was in 26 films, most of which were for MGM, except for the last few. She was a box office hit; once she spotted fourteen magazines on the same day at a newsstand with her photo on the cover. In 1952, Williams starred in Million Dollar Mermaid, which ended up becoming her nickname for the remainder of the time she was at MGM. In 1960, Williams was in an aqua-special, Esther Williams at Cypress Gardens. In 1966, she was “inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.” (5)
Williams was married four times. Her first husband, Leonard Kovner, she met while she was in college. They divorced in 1944. She had three children with her second husband, Ben Gage, whom she married in 1945. She was quoted as saying “There I was, diving off platforms with Ben in Neptune’s Daughter, going underwater in silver lame with Kim in Pagan Love Song and learning how to water ski with Susie in Easy to Love…and somehow I stayed a size 10 through it all.” (6) Her third husband, Fernando Lamas, preferred that she not appear in movies after their marriage. They remained together until his death in 1982. She later married Edward Bell in 1994.
Esther Williams also had a mind for business. If you like vintage inspired swimwear you could actually buy an Esther Williams designed swimsuit. She was quoted as saying “I put you in a suit that contains you and you will swim in it. I don’t want you in two Dixie cups and a fish line.”(7) One can buy Esther Williams paper dolls on her website, which is: http://esther-williams.com/
Her name was used as a namesake for a line of swimming pools and swimming pool accessories, along with Johnny Weissmueller, whom she began her career with. She became involved in teaching parents how to teach their children to swim, with her video line Swim, Baby, Swim. She also co-wrote, along with author Digby Diehl, her autobiography The Million Dollar Mermaid. She met her fourth husband, Edward Bell, when he called her to schedule her appearance “as a commentator for synchronized swimming at the 1984 Summer Olympics (8).
Williams died at ninety one of natural causes. The Hollywood Walk of Fame bears a star at 1560 Vine Street, for her contribution to the film industry. She was an inspiration to many; and the whole sport of swimming became more popular as a recreation due to her love for the water.
When I was a child I used to love Esther Williams movies. I found the synchronized swimming scenes thrilling. As an adult I still enjoy them, plus I like the spunky, playful character that Esther often played in her movies. She often had the men in her life, in the movies, wondering where on earth they stood. Perhaps it was her quest to play hard to get. In Easy to Love she tried, and eventually succeeded in getting her manager to realize he was in love with her. Or in Neptune’s Daughter, perhaps she was possibly aiming to give herself time to figure out how she felt about the fella. She had originally thought that the Cuban soccer player, played by actor Richardo Montalban, was chasing her sister. Either way, she was charming, entertaining, stunning, and incredibly strong as a female athlete.
If you like vintage swim wear, Hawaiian shirts, dead stock and vintage sunglasses, and vintage wear I inserted a few pictures of summer-beach wear from David Owen’s Vintage Clothing shop. He has a lovely collection of vintage wear. The items are all further down the chain from mass produced items, as well as having a unique look.
The pictures of aquatic animals are from the New York Metro Transit System. They are at the Houston Street stop on the number 1 train, the downtown side. I took them awhile back and saved them for this post.
Whatever water sport you enjoy, I hope you enjoyed this post and are having a good time this summer. My favorite water sport here, in the city, is kayaking on the Hudson. It is free and sponsored by the Downtown Boathouse. I did go to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn recently for a swim and a stroll.
Summer/Beach Wear Collection from
David Owen’s Vintage Clothing
154 Orchard Street
New York, NY 10002
“Swim Mark Shattered” Los Angeles Times. May 27, 1939. P.8, Pt.
